The Evolution of Nintendo

This piece was written when I was in the 7th grade in early December. I have a lot of admiration for the company and I absolutely adore their games.

Nintendo is an affluent company that has prevailed for over one hundred years. The history of the company started when it was founded on September 23, 1889 by creator Fusajiro Yamauchi. He was a Japanese entrepreneur and the first president of the company. The business was known as Nintendo Koppai. Through 1889-1956 it was a card company that sold Hanafuda cards. Hanafuda cards are playing cards that originated in Japan. They are used to play multiple games, and the name translates as “flower cards.” Nintendo’s Hanafuda cards became well known throughout Japan. This lead to Nintendo continuing produce card games. In 1959, Nintendo collaborated with Disney so that they were able to use Disney characters on their playing cards. Soon after, Nintendo became a small toy company that struggled against dominating companies like Bandai and Tomy. From 1980 to 1991, the company’s adoration rose greatly. During this time, Gunpei Yokoi created the line of electronic handheld games called Game & Watch. Gunpei Yokoi was an electrical engineer who helped Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president during that time. In 1989, Gunpei Yokoi created the Game Boy console which included the game Tetris. Nintendo created many other brilliant game consoles with entertaining games to accompany them. Nintendo released the GameCube in the early 2000’s. On November 21, 2004, they created a completely different handheld console. The Nintendo DS, which had dual screens, one being touch sensitive. The Wii console was released on November 19, 2006. It was quite popular even though it competed with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3. A lot of this progress for the company is because of the intelligent presidents that took after Fusajiro Yamauchi. Right after Fusajiro, Sekiryo Yamauchi, who had married Fusajiro’s daughter, was the second president. Hiroshi Yamauchi was the third president and was a key part in changing the company into a video game company because of his work with Gunpei Yokoi.

Not only were the presidents vital in the success of the company, but the game designers and music composers refined Nintendo drastically. Koji Kondo was the third person for Nintendo to create sound effects and music for the games. He and Toru Minegishi are known for working on popular soundtracks for The Legend of Zelda. Shigeru Miyamoto is a game designer that created and worked on various games that have made the company a success. Shigeru is the mastermind behind many titles including Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pikmin, and Nintendogs. He was rated the best video game designer of all time by IGN Entertainment. Takashi Tezuka has worked on every Zelda game, and other games including Super Mario Bros. Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, and Hideki Konno all worked on the Super Mario Bro series together.

One of the most successful and popular Nintendo games include the Mario series. The series has sold over 500 million copies and is one of the best-selling video game franchise of all time. Another popular game is The Legend of Zelda. This series has sold over 75 million copies so far. The bestselling games in this series include, Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past, Twilight Princess, and Majora's Masks. The Pokemon franchise is also loved around the world. It has sold over 260 million video game copies. The most recent video game released is Pokemon Sun and Moon. Pokemon Sun and Moon on the 3DS has sold over 3.7 million games in America so far. This makes it one of its fastest selling games Nintendo has ever launched in America. Pokemon also has a trading card game that has sold over 21.5 billion cards, and 800 episodes in its animated series.

Nintendo today is still an electronic gaming software company. Nintendo still has plans of continuing making enjoyable games. They are releasing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in 2017, as well as a game for the IOS called Super Mario Brother Run. In March of 2017, Nintendo is releasing their first hybrid tablet. The new gaming console is called Nintendo Switch. Given Nintendo’s prosperous history it seems likely that the Nintendo Switch console will be even more successful than the Wii U.

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